Thursday, February 13, 2014

Tunguska

I'm starting a new map today, the next one over that's directly east of the Lower Yenisey map I've been working on. This one is called Tunguska. I want to start with my hex map template, and these can be downloaded from the wiki. These are 30 squares by 35, making for a nice big map, and if you use your Microsoft Office editor for pictures you can pare off the white space so that they can be overlapped to make even bigger maps. Beware of printing them, however, because the hexes are almost an inch in diameter, so the hex map will be multiple sheets if printed. Here's a png of the hex map (the boxes on the file are without borders, so the boxes won't appear:

Even though I darkened the hexes quite a lot, they're still dim - I prefer the hex lines to be quite soft, because in fact this makes the colors of the map seem brighter and the overall effect more aesthetically pleasing. I feel its important that things like this look good, as we're naturally drawn, and thus fascinated, to things that are easy to stare at.

For my own use, I prefer the hexes be colored pink to start, as pink is very definitely a color that doesn't appear anywhere on the map when I'm done ... thus, I can easily see what I haven't changed or fixed.

The first thing I do with a new map is first include a two-hex overlap for areas that have been previously upgraded. Thus, in this map of Tunguska, the previous done parts are the lines at the top (north) and of course west (Lower Yenisey):

Here is some sincere advice: overlap your maps. Don't just draw them so they synch up along the edges; overlapping them will help with continuity from map to map, and will better the experience of being able to look at only one map at a time, and not needed to pull out two or four sheets when the party happens to be at the corner of the map you've drawn. Overlap them!
Well, it's not much, but that hex map should be useful to some of you. More tomorrow.